when Napoleon, during his retreat from Moscow, while before
Smolenski, heard of the attempt of Mallet, he could not get over the
adventure of the Police Minister, Savary, and the Prefect of Police,
Pasquier. "Napoleon," says Rapp, "was not surprised that these wretches
(he means the agents of the police) who crowd the salons and the taverns,
who insinuate themselves everywhere and obstruct everything, should not
have found out the plot, but he could not understand the weakness of the
Duc de Rovigo. The very police which professed to divine everything had
let themselves be taken by surprise." The police possessed no foresight
or faculty of prevention. Every silly thing that transpired was reported
either from malice or stupidity. What was heard was misunderstood or
distorted in the recital, so that the only result of the plan was
mischief and confusion.

The police as a political engine is a dangerous thing. It foments and
encourages more false conspiracies than it discovers or defeats real
ones. Napoleon has related "that M. de la Rochefoucauld formed at Paris
a conspiracy in favour of the King, then at Mittau, the first act of
which was to be the death of the Chief of the Government: The plot being
discovered, a trusty person belonging to the police was ordered to join
it and become one of the most active agents. He brought letters of
recommendation from an old gentleman in Lorraine who had held a
distinguished rank in the army of Conde." After this, what more can be
wanted? A hundred examples could not better show the vileness of such a
system. Napoleon, when fallen, himself thus disclosed the scandalous
means employed by his Government.

Napoleon on one occasion, in the Isle of Elba, said to an officer who was
conversing with him about France, "You believe, then; that the police
agents foresee everything and know everything? They invent more than
they discover. Mine, I believe, was better than that they have got now,
and yet it was often only by mere chance, the imprudence of the parties
implicated, or the treachery of some of them, that something was
discovered after a week or fortnight's exertion." Napoleon, in directing
this officer to transmit letters to him under the cover of a commercial
correspondence, to quiet his apprehensions that the correspondence might
be discovered, said, "Do you think, then, that all letters are opened at
the post office? They would never be able to do so. I have often
endeavoured to